Religious Statistics of Hawaii, 1825-1972

Robert C. Schmitt

Statistics on church membership or religious preference in Hawaii, like thosefor many other Pacific territories, have long been noted for their inadequacies.Coverage has been sporadic and incomplete. Definitions have varied fromchurch to church and from survey to survey. Tabulations have usuallyappeared only in abridged form in little-known publications. Although datafor individual denominations go back as far as 1825, it was not until 1972that a comprehensive survey encompassing the full range of religious beliefsand organizations in the Islands was published. In part because of the interestgenerated by release of the 1972 survey, this brief review of the statisticalrecord has been prepared.

Prior to 1820, the religion of the Hawaiians was essentially a nature worship,involving many gods—Kane, Ku, Lono, Kanaloa, Ku-kailimoku, and Pele,among others.1 Believers in these gods presumably included the entireindigenous population, numbering some 250,000 at the time of the firstEuropean contact in 1778 and an estimated 142,000 forty-five years later.2

Religious statistics were first compiled for Hawaii by the New EnglandProtestant missionaries, soon after their arrival in 1820. Beginning with thetotal for 1825, the Sandwich Islands Mission published annual data on"members in good standing" (later termed "members in regular standing")in a series maintained until modern times. These yearly compilations wereoften incomplete; the 1835 total, for example, included figures from onlytwelve of the seventeen mission stations then in operation, and as late as 1853four (out of twenty-three) were missing. Trends were moreover affected byliberalization of membership requirements, exceptional proselytizing zeal byone or two individuals, heavy mortality among members in times of epidemic,sporadic attempts to purge the lists of inactive members, and other factors.3

Total membership, however tallied, rose from ten in 1825 to 749 in 1835 and18,451 in 1840. By 1856, 23,652 Hawaiians—some 32.6 percent of thepopulation—were members. These statistics appeared in a variety of publica-tions, including the annual reports of the Sandwich Islands Mission (1835—

Robert C. Schmitt is Hawaii State Statistician.

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1853), the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1835-1870), the Hawaiian Evangelical Association (1854-1962), and the HawaiiConference of the United Church of Christ (1963-1969).4 Annual totals forselected dates, 1825 to 1870, are cited in table 1.

TABLE I

PROTESTANT CHURCH MEMBERS IN REGULAR STANDING: 1825 TO 1870

Year Number Percent ofpopulation Year Number Percent of

population

1825 10 0.01832 577 0.51835 749 0.71836 916 0.81837 ....... 1,049 1.01838 3,341 3.21839 ........ 15,915 1531840 . . . . . . . 18,451 17.91841 16,903 16.61842 20,280 20.21843 ....... 23,804 24.01844 22,670 23.21845 (NA) (NA)

1846 21,058 22.11847 23,597 25.1

1848 23,102 25.61849 22,831 26.71850 21,738 25.91851 21,054 25.71852 (NA) (NA)

1853 22,236 29.11 8 5 4 . . . . . . . . 22,916 31.41855 •• 18,479 25.31856 23,652 32.6

1857 • 21,943 30.4

1861 19,767 28.51863 19,679 29.41865 17,521 27.11870 14,850 25.1

NA: Not available.SOURCE: Sheldon Dibble, A History of the Sandwich Islands (Honolulu: Thos. G.

Thrum, 1909), p. 223; Rufus Anderson, The Hawaiian Islands: Their Progress andCondition Under Missionary Labors (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1864), pp. 299-300;Extracts from the Minutes of the Sandwich Islands Mission for 1835-1853 (Honolulu:Mission Press, 1835-1853); Revised Minutes of the Delegate Meeting of the SandwichIslands Mission . . . 1838 (Honolulu: Mission Press, 1839), p. 18; Report of the AmericanBoard of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for 1847-1870; Minutes of the Meeting ofthe Hawaiian Evangelical Association . . . 1857 (Honolulu: Mission Press, 1857), p. 24;"Religious Statistics," The Polynesian, July 13, 1861. Percentages computed frompopulation estimates in Robert C. Schmitt, Demographic Statistics of Hawaii: 1778-1965 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1968), pp. 42 and 223 (1825-1847 bylinear interpolation).

Membership data for the Roman Catholic Church are much less readilyavailable. Although the first Catholic missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1827,it was many years before regular estimates of Catholic membership werecompiled or made public. In 1846 Jarves wrote of "a total population attendingthem [the Catholic churches], or supposed to be under their influence, ofnearly 14,000.."5 Yzendoorn's otherwise detailed and comprehensive historyof the Catholic mission contains only one set of membership totals, a break-down by race and military status (adding to 109,000) as of June 30, 1926.6

More recently, annual estimates of the total Catholic population of Hawaii

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(including baptized infants and small children) have been published in TheOfficial Catholic Directory. The January 1, 1971, estimate from this source is210,000.7

Mormon missionaries arrived in December 1950, and by October 1853counted 3,016 members in the Islands.8

It was about this time that the Hawaiian Government decided to add aquestion on religion to its official census schedules. Earlier governmentcensuses, conducted in 1847, 1848, 1849, and 1850, had not touched on thissubject. For the fifth such census, taken as of December 26,1853, the Hawaiianand part Hawaiian populations were asked to classify themselves according toone of three groups: Protestant (reported by 56,840), Catholic (11,401), andMormon (2,778). Nobody, apparently, answered "other" or "none" ordeclined to respond. The question did not appear on schedules used for the2,119 foreign residents of the Kingdom.9

Religion was omitted from the 1860, 1866, 1872, and 1878 censuses, andthen restored for the 1884 count. Only two denominations were listed on thecensus form, Protestant (checked by 29,685 Island residents) and RomanCatholic (with 20,072). The accompanying narrative added: "This leaves abalance of 30,821 who do not report themselves as belonging to any religiousdenomination. Of this number, the Chinese form the largest proportion. Outof the 17,939 of this nationality living in the Kingdom, there are but 300reported (by Mr. F. W. Damon, the Superintendent of the Chinese Missionon the Islands), as being 'Christians.' . . . A special census taken of the Jewsin the Kingdom gives their number at 84. Of the sect known as the LatterDay Saints there are 3,576. . . . All of the Portuguese returned in the Censusare set down as Catholics." Protestant and Catholic totals were reported byisland, district, and, in the case of Honolulu, by election wards.10

The last appearance of an item on religion in a Hawaiian census was in 1896.Skipped for the 1890 count, the question this time listed three possibilities:Protestant (chosen by 23,273), Roman Catholic (26,363), and Mormon(4,886). These data were cross-tabulated by sex, race and nationality, but notby geographic area. The census narrative remarked: "In a matter of this kinda large number of people decline to state what their religion is, and with ourlarge Asiatic population there is a large number of Buddhists, followers ofConfucius, etc. With these and their many varying sects, the statistics hadnothing to do."11

The 1853, 1884, and 1896 census data have been analyzed in an issue ofSocial Process in Hawaii devoted to "Sociology of Religion in Hawaii."12

Comparative statistics appear in table 2."Church statistics" were compiled for the Territory of Hawaii in 1905,

1907, 1908, and 1909, and published in Thrum's Annual.13 These tabulationsshowed separate totals on number of churches, pastors or priests, members,Sunday schools, Sunday school scholars, and value of church property foreach of ten groups—Buddhists, Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ,German Lutherans, Latter Day Saints, Methodist Episcopal Church,Protestant Episcopal Church, Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints,

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TABLE 2

RELIGION OF THE POPULATION: 1853, 1884, AND 1896

Percent distributionReligion 1853* 1884 1896

1853 1884 1896

Total population 71,019 80,578 109,020 100.0 100.0 100.0Protestants 56,840 29,685 23,273 80.0 36.8 21.3Roman Catholics 11,401 20,072 26,363 16.1 24.9 24.2Mormons 2,778 3,576 4,886 3.9 4.4 4.5Jews — 84 — 0 0.1 0Rest of population — 27,161 54,498 0 33.7 50.0

* Limited to Hawaiians and part Hawaiians; excludes 2,119 non-Hawaiians.SOURCE: "Census Table of the Hawaiian Islands for 1853," The Polynesian, April 15,

1854; Census of the Hawaiian Islands Taken December 27th, 1884 Under the Board ofEducation (Honolulu, 1885); Report of the General Superintendent of the Census, 1896(Honolulu: Department of Public Instruction, 1897), pp. 105 and 107.

Roman Catholics, and Seventh-day Adventists. The 1905 data were attributedto the Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, but no such tableappears in the Superintendent's reports for this period. The 1907, 1908, and1909 data were printed in Thrum's Annual without source references.Membership totals for 1905 and 1909 are summarized in table 3.

TABLE 3

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: 1905, 1909, AND 1954-56

Percent distributionDenomination 1905 1909 1954-1955 1905 1909 1954-1955

Total population 166,400 186,600 522,400 100.0 100.0 100.0Specified

denominations 67,388 89,053 333.700 40.5 47.7 63.9Protestant 10,255 11,991 32,700 6.2 6.4 6.3Roman Catholic 12,000 35,000 200,000 7.2 18.8 38.3Latter Day

Saints 5,133 8,162 17,000 3.1 4-4 3.3Buddhist 40,000 33,900 62,200 24.0 18-2 11.9Shinto — — 21,800 — — 4.2

Rest of population 99,012 97.547 188,700 59.5 52.3 36.1

t Protestant total limited to adult members; Roman Catholic total includes children;age limits not specified for other groups. Christian Scientists and Seventh-dayAdventists included in "Rest of population."

SOURCE : Total population from Robert C. Schmitt, Demographic Statistics of Hawaii:1778-1965 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1968), p. 223, and Hawaii StateDepartment of Planning and Economic Development, Intercensal Population Estimatesfor Hawaii, 1930 to 1970 (Statistical Report 81, July 23, 1971), p. 5 (average of 1954and 1955). Membership in specified denominations from Thos. G. Thrum, compilerand publisher, The Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for 1906, p. 21, and 1910, p. 21(Honolulu, 1905 and 1909), and Harley H. Zeigler, "Religions," in Moray Epstein, ed.,All About Hawaii, 81st edition (Honolulu: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Ltd., 1956),pp.129-160.

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The United States Bureau of the Census conducted a Census of ReligiousBodies in 1926 and again in 1936, but tabulations were limited to the forty-eight States, and the territories and possessions were excluded. None of thedecennial population censuses undertaken by the Bureau of the Census hasever included a question on religion, either for States or territories.

The next comprehensive compilation of religious statistics was made byHarley H. Zeigler, who published his 1954-1955 data in the 1956 edition ofAll About Hawaii.1* Zeigler noted that his figures were based on informationsupplied by the various denominations, which often used widely differingdefinitions of "membership" and failed to adjust for duplications and overlap.His tabulation, summarized in table 3, reported 200,000 Roman Catholics,32,700 Protestants, 17,000 Latter Day Saints, 62,200 Buddhists, and 21,800Shintoists.

Statistics on religious preference were obtained as part of a sample surveyconducted on Oahu in the late summer of i960. These data were a by-productof a study by a team of sociologists and economists, employed by the Univer-sity of Hawaii Economic Research Center to conduct research requested bythe City and County of Honolulu Liquor Commission. The team (amongother things) undertook a sample survey of 1,056 males and 1,050 females oflegal drinking age, and studied their drinking habits in relation to their age,race, sex, religion, and other related factors. Results were tabulated sepatatelyfor males and females and published in a confidential report; later they werereprinted, with permission, in the Statistical Abstract of Hawaii.15 Thecombined male and female samples—2,106 Oahu residents twenty years ofage or more—produced the following results: no religion, 12.1 percent;Roman Catholic, 27.6; Mormon, 2.7; Protestant, 39.0; Buddhist, 15.8; andothers (including Confucianist, Jewish, Shinto, and other religion, and noresponse), 2.8.

Early in 1965, the Honolulu Council of Churches estimated that thepopulation of the State included 220,000 Roman Catholics, 200,000 Protestantsor Mormons, 150,000 Buddhists, and 120,000 "unchurched."16

The Hawaii State Department of Planning and Economic Developmentundertook a telephone survey of church officials in August 1970, in an effortto obtain current totals on membership. Eventually published by the Depart-ment, these data indicated between 100,000 and 150,000 Buddhists, 210,000Roman Catholics, and 93,715 in other specified sects.17

The most recent figures are those compiled by the Department of Religion,University of Hawaii, early in 1972. This tabulation included information onthe number of churches and estimated membership for each of 76 groups,as obtained by telephone and correspondence. Membership data were State-wide figures as estimated by church central offices on Oahu. Unlike earlierstudies, this one included a wide range of the newer or more atypical religiousmovements, such as the Dancing Goddess, Church of Scientology, and HareKrishna. For the first time in any statistical survey, ancient or modern,"indigenous Hawaiian" was listed as a faith—unfortunately followed by"NA" in the data columns. Combined membership for all faiths was reported

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as 542,000, or approximately 69 percent of the population of the State. Thelargest denominations were the Roman Catholic (with 220,000 members),Daijingu Temple (a Shinto sect, with 40,000), the Honpa Hongwanji andTodaiji Mission (both Buddhist, each with 30,000), and Church of the LatterDay Saints (also 30,000). These statistics were initially issued in a limiteddistribution table and later reprinted in The State of Hawaii Data Book.18

The survey results are summarized in table 4.

TABLE 4

RELIGIOUS MEMBERSHIP: 1972

Category Groups Members Percent ofpopulation

Total population (1971) . . . . 76 789,225 ioo-o

Buddhist 16 121,460 15-4Christian 37 347.692 44* 1

Roman Catholic 1 220,000 27*9Protestant1 19 81,102 10-3Holiness faiths2 9 4.925 o*6Metaphysical Christian 3 834 o-iOther Christian 5 40,831 5-2

Jewish 2 1.072 o-iShinto3 5 43.5OO 5-5New religious movements4 7 16,340 2*1Other religious faiths5 9 11,780 1-5Rest of population — 247,381 31-3

1 Excludes groups with fewer than 500 members.2 Excludes membership in Church of the Latter Day Rain.3 Excludes membership in Inari Jinjya and Ishizuchi Shrine.5 Primarily of Japanese derivation.6 Excludes membership in International Meditation Society and indigenous Hawaiian

cults.SOURCE: Total population from provisional 1971 estimate in Hawaii State Depart-

ment of Planning and Economic Development, Provisional Estimates of the Populationof Hawaii, July 1, 1971 (Statistical Report 86, November 12, 1971), p. 7. Membershipfrom E. M. and M. E. McCrath, Department of Religion, University of Hawaii,"Religions in Hawaii" (unpublished table, 1972).

Comparison of the 1972 data with figures for earlier years is extremelydifficult. Incomplete coverage, differing definitions, and gross statisticalinaccuracy in some of the historical data has seriously affected their com-parability and made it virtually impossible to trace trends with any precision.

Notwithstanding these problems, the major developments in religious beliefand membership in Hawaii remain reasonably clear. The indigenous natureworship of the Hawaiians quickly gave way to New England Protestantismsoon after its introduction in 1820. The Roman Catholic Mission, established

seven years later, began to rival the Protestants in membership within ageneration, and by the end of the 19th century had overtaken them. Immigrantsfrom China, Japan, and Korea brought their Buddhist, Confucianist, andShinto beliefs to the Islands soon thereafter. Most recently, there has been arapid increase in membership in the Apostolic, Pentecostal, and other Holinessfaiths, the Dancing Goddess and other new movements of Japanese derivation,and such groups as the Hare Krishna and Church of Scientology.

NOTES

1 Ralph S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, 1778-1854, Foundation and Trans-formation (Honolulu, 1938), 7-8.

2 Robert C. Schmitt, Demographic Statistics of Hawaii: 1778-1965 (Honolulu, 1968),18-25.

3 Kuykendall, op. cit., 114-115; Report of the American Board of Commissioners forForeign Missions . . . 1840 (Boston, 1840), 37-39.

* Extracts from the Minutes of the Sandwich Islands Mission for 1835-1853; Report ofthe American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for 1835-1870; Minutesof the Meeting of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association for 1854-1863; Ka Moolelo oka Halawai Makahiki o ka Ahahui Euanelio Hawaii for 1863-1882; Annual Reportof the Hawaiian Evangelical Association for 1878-1961; Annual Report, HawaiianEvangelical Association of Congregational Christian Churches, 1962 ; Annual Report,Hawaii Conference of the United Church of Christ for 1963-1970.

5 James Jackson Jarves, History of the Hawaiian Islands, 3rd Ed. (Honolulu, 1847), 209.9 Father Reginald Yzendoorn, History of the Catholic Mission in the Hawaiian Islands

(Honolulu, 1927), 244.7 P. J. Kenedy & Sons, The Official Catholic Directory, Anno Domini 1971 (New York,

I971), 367.8 Kuykendall, op. cit., 344-345.9 P, April 15, 1854 and April 22, 1854; Schmitt, op. cit., 76.

10 Census of the Hawaiian Islands Taken December 27th, 1884 Under the Board ofEducation (Honolulu, 1885), N. P.

11 Department of Public Instruction, Report of the General Superintendent of the Census,1896 (Honolulu, 1897), 105-107.

i a Andrew W. Lind, "Religious Diversity in Hawaii," Social Process in Hawaii, Vol. 16(1952), 11-19.

13 HAA, 1906 (p. 21), 1908 (p. 21), 1909 (p. 21), and 1910 (p. 21).14 Harley H. Zeigler, "Religions," in Moray Epstein, ed., All About Hawaii, 81st Ed.

(Honolulu, 1956), 129-160.15 University of Hawaii, Economic Research Center, An Analysis of Alcohol Consump-

tion Patterns on Oahu (Honolulu, June 1961), Part I, p. 22; Hawaii State Departmentof Planning and Research, Statistical Abstract of Hawaii, 1962 (Honolulu, 1962), 16.

18 Seido Ogawa, "How Churches Grew in Isles," HSB, Jan. 16, 1965, A-6.17 Hawaii State Department of Planning and Economic Development, The State of

Hawaii Data Book 1971: A Statistical Abstract (Honolulu, 1971), 13.18 E. M. and M. E. McCrath, Department of Religion, University of Hawaii, "Religions

in Hawaii" (table, 1972); Hawaii State Department of Planning and EconomicDevelopment, The State of Hawaii Data Book 1972 : A Statistical Abstract (Honolulu,1972), 21-23.

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